It's a family thing
by Ambarab
Summary: What if John Constantine had a rowdy nephew he has never seen before? What if this nephew's name was Rupert Gates - a blond, psychotic 17-year-old with a remarkable tendency to steal? What if those two are forced to live together for a while? Let's find out! (Constantine/Flypaper crossover).


**Hey :)  
This is my first fic on AO3, and it's also the first time that I write something longer than a drabble in a language that's not mine. I'm a nineteen-year-old Italian girl who's deeply fallen in love with Matt Ryan (aaaw, that little Welsh pancake *O*), so I've binge-watched all of his work and I've felt the urge to write something about two characters I both love 3  
Since the very first time that I watched **_**Flypaper**_ **and** _ **Constantine,**_ **there had been this secret lovely AU scenario in the back of my mind, involving Rupert Gates as the rebel, impulsive and outlaw nephew & John Constantine as his far, dysfunctional, scruffy uncle who tries to tell him not to smoke, drink and steal from people - but then ends up doing it first.  
So, this is it ;)  
Please, let me know if there's something to correct, or if some passages sound weird!**  
 **Hope you'll enjoy this ridiculous stuff ;)**

When Rupert first stepped ahead, under the blinding pale october sky of UK, he thought that nothing could go worse. The airport was crowded with expressionless, busy faces that never glanced at him, neither by mistake, vanishing fast into their highly important activities. He slowly moved a couple of steps around the huge, aseptic waiting area, and headed for the exit as the electronic voice kept repeating, all over the general noise, that _flight 7896 has been cancelled._ Amen.  
Rupert wasn't ok with being there, but he didn't really have a choice. His mother lost her usual composure when she had to pick him up, for the eleventh time in a month, at the police station. Rupert had been having trouble with cops since he was a kid. And now that he was seventeen, _a rebel teenage pain in the ass_ , he just felt the need to spin things a little further and go for occasional thefts. The cops arrested him after he had had a fight with a warden, in the parking lot of a supermarket where he had been caught stealing. Rupert refused to follow the warden inside the shop and overreacted – as usual, - punching him in the face. One of the clerks called the police, and the cops got him handcuffed in a second – he was a wren, tiny and thin and worn out from the battle and all covered in bruises, but still fighting with the very little strength he had left – and took him away.  
Rupert's mother screamed at him, said that she didn't want him to turn into a criminal; and, as she was about to tear up in the car, driving both of them back home, Rupert felt the pointy sting of fault tickling sadistically the bottom of his heart. He didn't say a word, but he saw that he had hurt her, and he felt like a killer. His mum had done all she could do to raise him decently. She worked as a waitress in a pub and earned a misery, in spite of the shitty hard work she had to do, and they lived in a small flat in one of the poorest areas of the city. Rupert's father was a rich, selfish dick who owned the majorities of a big banking society, but he never wanted to hear - neither from his son nor from Rupert's mother. Seventeen years before, Rupert's parents shared a one-night-stand after they met at a party; but then, even when his father got to know that Selene was pregnant, he never wanted to deal with that. So, she ended up all alone with a child and a lot of problems to fix up: but she made it. And now, now that the lovely blonde baby was growing up, she was worried about his future, because Rupert seemed to have very wrong tendencies.  
«You don't deserve this shit,» Rupert once said to his mother. One night, he found her crying alone with her head on her crossed arms, leaning on the kitchen table. She had had a very hard day at work, and she felt exhausted. Whatever she did, it was never enough. She looked around her and all she could see was misery. This wasn't what she wanted for her child.  
Rupert quickly moved towards her and hugged her tight. He was twelve, at the time, and he could do nothing but surround her with his weak, childish arms and lean a kiss on her cheek.  
«I promise, mum, one day we'll have all the money we want. I'll steal all the money from that bastard and—»  
«Don't say things like that,» she interrupted him. «Don't even think about it. We're honest. _You'_ ll be honest.» She left out a sigh, sweeping her own tears away. She looked frale on the surface, but she was at least as strong as iron on the inside. «We're better than him. We will make it.»  
But Rupert couldn't get over with seeing his mother like that. He wanted things to change. He would have been a criminal, the best criminal of the whole fucking country. And all the rage, all the hurting he felt inside, would disappear, eventually.

Rupert really made his mother go mad, this time.  
She told him to pack his things and put him on a flight which would have dumped him in a country where he was a stranger.  
«There's this quiet town, in Wales, called Swansea,» she told him. «My brother John lives there. He's a little... Uhm, eccentric, you'll see. But he's a good guy, and he'll take care of you for a while.»  
«But mum-» Rupert tried to say, with his backpack hanging upon his right shoulder.  
«Don't say a word, Rupert,» she replied, firmly. «I want you to stay far away from this city, for now. You need to calm down a little, my son,» she added, her fingers gently caressing his cheek. «I'm not happy about this, but it's better for you. Trust me.»  
Rupert bit his lower lip, looking at her with a thick veil of offense in his eyes. He felt betrayed, in some ways. «So, you prefer to send me across the Ocean, with an _uncle John_ I never heard about before, who's also a little... Eccentric? That means that he's a sort of drunken retarded _muppet_ , or what?»  
«Rupert, don't be silly,» she answered. «I wouldn't let you go if it wasn't safe, or necessary.»  
He looked at her helplessly. Any attempt to make her change her mind was vain. «I'm sorry for what happened at the market, mum. But really, I don't need to go away. I want to stay _here._ With you.»  
She hesitated for a moment, but quickly got back to her point. «You'll see a new place, you'll do different things... That's good. You need to take a break from all of this, and seriously start to think of what you want to do with your life. Take it as a sort of vacation, ok?» She handed him the tickets with a smile – which was meant to comfort him, but she couldn't conceal how worried she was. «Just a few days.»  
He looked down at the tickets, and took them with a resigned shrug. Selene, motherly, had him tucked in a warm embrace before letting him go.  
«Take care of yourself,» she whispered in his ear, as a greeting. He hugged her back in response, with an uncomfortable feeling of detachment growing into his heart.  
«You know that I love you, by the way,» was all he was able to say, before getting on board.

 **Additional notes:  
I've never been in Swansea, so the following descriptions of the place are entirely **_**invented**_ **.  
Please, don't stone me if I take some creative liberties . **


End file.
